The present invention relates to a component carrier for insertable printed circuit boards that are equipped with electrical and electronic components, the carrier including front and rear support rails which are provided with laterally shaped on, planar longitudinal webs and are equipped with rows of equidistant centering holes and with guide rails that can be inserted between the support rails and are provided at their top faces with guide grooves for the circuit boards and at their undersides with at least one centering pin at each end which engages in a centering hole. Additionally the guide rails are provided with a spring-elastic fastening element for releasably fastening the guide rails to the support rails.
The invention is employed for component carriers for printed circuit boards of any size and type and is particularly suitable for holding such circuit boards which, because of being equipped with heavy electrical components, have a greater weight.
It is known to fasten guide rails for circuit boards by clamping them in and engaging them at the support rails of the component carriers. Such engageable guide rails can be installed very quickly and easily, but they may have the drawback that they can be removed just as easily without the exertion of force. This means that if the component carrier is subjected to shocks--for example because the device is set down too hard--the inserted circuit boards break out of their guide rails which may be the case, in particular, in connection with larger, tightly packed circuit boards. To overcome this drawback, it has been proposed to screw or rivet the guide rails to the support rails which, however, involves relatively high installation costs. Guide rails that are provided with outwardly projecting tabs which must be bent considerably for installation and removal, are relatively insensitive against being pushed out, but this is offset by the somewhat complicated manual installation.